1984 doesn't seem so fictional anymore.

A minor character in the book "1984" has many lessons to teach. Spoilers ahead.

I think it's funny to even provide a spoiler alert before writing this, but I don't wish to ruin the story for anyone not familiar with it. If you aren't familiar with it, you should rectify that immediately. Even if it's via the movie adaptations. If movies are your thing, watch the version released in the year 1984 starring John Hurt. Anyway, let's get into it.

Tom Parsons is a minor character in the illustrious book later adapted to film "1984" written by George Orwell. He isn't all that prevalent, but I believe he's not only integral to the overall story, it's vital to understand what aspects of life in an age of relentless propaganda and divisiveness that he represents.

Parsons is a die-hard jingoist, even in the face of torture by his countrymen for thought crimes. Even while stricken with fear and being in severe pain, he speaks only good about his beloved Party. Because he thinks that's what they want to hear. And he knows that the party is always watching, and always listening, so he is trying to be an appeaser to lessen the severity of his punishment. And if you really notice how he speaks, he seems conflicted all the time. He seems to want to rail against the establishment, yet he frames it in a way that sounds like glowing praise, tinged with increasingly cynical rhetoric. He's a thought criminal and he meets the likely end of a thought criminal, despite his best efforts.

The concept of thought crime and its requisite punishments should be all too familiar to anyone living today when faced with the nihilistic fervor of cancel culture. Applying 1984's term for cancel culture very much works in a similar way. So if you hear anyone saying that a canceled individual was "unpersoned" - they're referencing 1984 to describe how someone's entire legacy - and their very lives - can be thrown out the window and erased for all time simply for one moment - or tweet - of wrongthink.

Unpersoning is depicted outright several times in 1984, primarily by Winston Smith - the main character of the story - since he works for the Ministry of Truth. The Ministry of Truth's job is to control information flow to the people through news, entertainment, and education. When necessary, they rewrite history and news to fit whatever narrative the Party wishes to foist on its people as truth.

What Tom Parsons represents to me is the average activist leftist who absolutely rails against anything that dares to oppose the narrative that they've been spoonfed by mass media. They always seem so motivated to do what they believe to be their civic duty by slinging hateful rhetoric at anyone they deem to be a threat to the Party ( in this real world case, the Democrat Party ). Yet there is doubt in the deepest reaches of their minds. It sometimes takes one specific event to manifest it, but it's there. And if their comrades get wind of that doubt, they stand to get canceled themselves by the very people they see as allies in what they believe to be "the good fight".

One solitary moment of weakness, of doubt in his beloved Party, was his downfall. His mistake that saw him canceled was him apparently muttering "Down with Big Brother" in his sleep. Or so his daughter attested. And if that concept sounds familiar, it's because we saw it in action after January 6th. Billboards were put up nationwide by the FBI, asking for any information people had on individuals they knew had attended the January 6th "Stop the Steal" protests at the Capitol building. And people turned in friends. They turned in family. Parents and Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, Cousins and siblings. No one was safe from being turned in to the Party - I mean the FBI - by loved ones for their transgressions. Very efficient way to further weaken the family unit, I must say. Their only reward was unpersoning people who, despite strong familial and friendly bonds, were on the wrong side. Political ideology is more important than family now, apparently.

Parsons was tortured in "Room 101" for his apparent crime. All his accomplishments also no doubt erased and attributed to someone else. And, like Winston, he was likely broken with mental and physical torture to love his Party with all his heart once again. A recent real world example of someone being broken by the Party is Macy Gray. She expressed doubt in the fact that someone can become a woman by "changing their parts". She lasted mere days before being brought on the Today Show, coerced both by relentless pressure from the woke mob, and from her interviewer, Hoda Kotb. She was brought there supposedly to promote a new album, but that thin veneer of pretense was quickly stripped away by Hoda Kotb, whose first question was about her appearance on the Piers Morgan show where she made those remarks about trans women that got her in hot water with the Party - I mean the mob. She was all too quick to grovel for forgiveness in front of the nationwide viewership the Today show purports. The way she said "I learned alot" tells me all I need to know. Macy behaved like she really had been taken to room 101 and re-educated.

So what does all this teach us? To me, it teaches us that we live in a tightly controlled propaganda state, and that all of us will no doubt have our time in room 101 if we keep giving the illusion of power to the Party that seeks to dominate every aspect of our lives. But things aren't nearly as bad for us yet. Yet being the key word. We're in a bad way but we're not lost.

We're being duped by an illusion of majority. The noisiest faction represents an infinitesimal portion of the population. We don't have to give them any power whatsoever, and we do that by refusing to play pretend with them. If enough of us refuse to play along, their foundless and psychotic facsimile of authority vanishes into thin air. Those of us who are still subscribed to sanity can't lose if we stand together.

If enough of us stand strong and say no, the woke mob will have no choice but to assimilate back into reality.